You Really Got a Hold on Me
by Night of the Living Monkey
Summary: Holden tries to salvage a trip to California after an interview goes poorly. Ed gets sick of being the backup plan.


Yeah, haven't written anything in like six months. Gonna come back with this horror-show. Go figure. This is what binging both seasons of _Mindhunter_ in a week does to a person.

Spoilers for season 2.

Rated a hard M for, well, Ed. And everything that comes with him.

* * *

The trip was a disaster, doomed to failure before Holden ever hopped on a plane. Holden was not superstitious, didn't carry a cross or other trinket like some of the cops he'd educated around the country, but there was no denying the negativity clouding over everything. And that negativity carried the name Bill Tench. Holden still didn't have the whole story—Bill said he didn't "shit where he ate" and had no intention of bringing his home to work or vice-versa—but the details Holden did have involved a dead kid, Bill's wife and son leaving while Bill had been in Atlanta, and divorce papers. There was no way for him to work efficiently with that level of stress.

As cruel as it seemed, the entire project could not be shelved while Bill dealt with the walking nightmare his life had become. That left a reluctant Holden to fly 2500 miles across the county to interview another of California's seemingly endless supply of serial killers. It should have been routine, or at least as routine as entering a prison and sitting three feet away from a murderer could be.

Instead, for the first time in his life, Ford could say someone besides his infant self had pissed his pants. Holden wasn't sure if the killer was still trying to convince people he was insane (a jury hadn't bought it) but the bastard had dropped trouser in the early stages of the interview and had hosed half the room. Including Holden's shoes and the hem of his slacks.

So now Holden was sitting in a dingy motel room in a new pair of pants, trying to find some way, any way, to salvage the trip. Even though the FBI was no longer so tight with its purse strings when it came to the Behavioral Science Unit, airfare, car rental, motel, room service, and assorted sundry expenses added up. If Holden came back with nothing except a smelly pair of pants and a quasi-humorous story, someone, somewhere, was not going to be happy crunching the numbers.

Holden groaned and stood up. He needed to situate himself. He needed...a map. If his original killer could do nothing except be incontinent, there had to be another murderer Holden could talk to. Not someone publicly infamous, that required too much time and paperwork and ass-kissing. But if Holden could stick a few pins into a map, locate the prisons nearest to him, maybe he could scrounge up someone interesting.

Luckily, the motel lobby stocked maps and in between brochures for various roadside attractions, Holden found a folding map of California. He hurried back to his room and unfolded the map on the bed. Holden examined the map and fished a pen from his pocket. He placed a large X over his current location and then drew a broad circle with his X in the center. He figured anything within his circle would be reasonable driving distance.

Holden's eyes drifted around the circle. In his mind, he silently went through a "wish list" of killers his team wanted to interview. Damn near all of them were useless at that moment. Bundy was in Florida. Gacy in Illinois. They'd already done the "fucking midget" Charles Manson, and there was no way they were getting another shot with him.

Locking onto the thought of Manson, Holden scanned the map with sudden determination. He located, on the very outskirts of his circle, the city of Vacaville.

"It's a beautiful drive, but it's long," Holden said to the empty room. A shiver passed down his spine.

* * *

It was indeed a long drive. As for beautiful, Holden lost any ability to appreciate beauty the third time he became mired in a traffic jam. By the time he arrived, his nerves were frayed and his patience had evaporated.

Holden figuratively signed his life away and handed over his gun and badge. He was such a familiar face around the prison by this point that, even before Holden could ask, a guard said, "I'll see if Ed's busy."

While Holden waited for the guard's return, he fiddled with his tape recorder and notebook. It was busy work. He'd checked the equipment every time he was in standstill on the freeway. Everything was in working order.

"He says he'll see you, but he's working." The guard motioned for Holden to follow him.

"Working?" Holden asked. He recalled Ed doing _something_ with recording equipment the last time Holden had visited, but he wasn't sure what. Maybe recording the autobiography he couldn't write for lack of a typewriter?

"He does books on tape," the guard replied. "For blind people."

Holden's mouth fell open. "Ed Kemper does books on tape for blind people."

The guard chuckled. "Apparently, he's got a soothing voice. Really good for recording."

"Jesus."

"Yeah, I'm sure they don't include his life story in the recordings. 'Once upon a time, in a faraway land, the dude reading this to you cut off someone's head.' "

"And had sex with it," Holden added.

There wasn't much more to say after that. Holden silently followed the guard until they arrived at the prison chapel. It was the exact location of Holden and Ed's last meeting.

Ed's back was to them, and he had a large pair of headphones on. He was reading aloud from some book Holden didn't recognize.

"'I saw myself dancing alone, always alone.'"

The line struck Holden but before the next sentence could be read, the guard announced loudly enough to be heard over the headphones, "Ed, the FBI's here."

The massive serial killer pushed a button on the recording equipment in front of him, removed his headphones and turned in the chair that seemed far too small for him to sit comfortably. "The whole FBI, Mike?"

"Nah, but I think this is enough of it for you. Everything good, Agent Ford? Ed?"

Both special agent and matricidal psychopath nodded. Mike gave Ford a little salute and let himself out.

"Holden! Are you here to see me this time, or am I the appetizer again?"

"I'm here for you, Ed."

"You are when it's convenient for you. Or when I've severed my radial artery."

The conversation was not going places Holden wanted to take it. "What are you reading?"

Ed grinned broadly and held up the book. "_Flowers in the Attic_, by VC Andrews."

Holden had heard of the book, but never read it. "What's it about?"

"An awful mother who locks her children in the attic and starves them."

"Oh."

"I've also read the _Star Wars_ novelization."

Holden had seen that. He wondered if Ed tried to mimic the voices, and imagined the killer trying to do Yoda. He was probably great at Chewbacca.

"How many have you done?" Holden asked.

"Dozens." While Ed listed off the books he'd recorded, Holden set up his much-less-impressive tape recorder. He placed it on the pew closest to Ed and then sat next to it.

"I'm sure you don't want to waste tape with us discussing literature," Ed said.

"I've wasted tape on a lot worse than that," Holden replied.

"Was Charlie a waste of tape?"

Before he could consider where it would steer the session, Holden said, "Bill called him a midget."

Ed burst into laughter. "To his face? Well, he isn't wrong. Oh, do you know what it actually is, a helter skelter?"

"Manson's race war thing? What?"

"It's a slide."

Holden looked at Ed in confusion. Ed nodded and continued, "It's a British carnival ride. You climb to the top of this big, curving slide and you ride a mat back down. That's what the Beatles are singing about. The lyrics are literal."

"You're shitting me."

"I am not."

"Manson and his Family killed seven people over a kiddie ride."

"I want to tell him—I know he's ignorant of the origin—but I don't want to hear him anymore than I already do," Ed said. "He's like one of those tiny dogs that yips and tries to bite your ankle. You have to try very hard not to step on them."

Holden had to stifle his laughter.

Ed stood up.

Holden suddenly found everything far less funny.

"Of course, when you're my size, almost everyone is like a little Pomeranian."

Before Holden could think of protesting, Ed was sitting beside him. He'd had to pick up the tape recorder to make room for his impressive bulk. Holden, without moving his head, flicked his eyes towards the man now next to him. Ed was examining the recorder.

"Top of the line, very nice. And look how small the tape is!" Ed gestured towards his much larger recording equipment. "Something like this could just about replace everything here. A few more years' development, you'll be able to carry it in your pocket."

Content, Ed placed the recorder on the floor. He turned his attention to Holden, who had pressed himself as far away from Ed as the bench allowed.

"Am I activating your flight or fight response? Am I making your lizard brain nervous?" Ed asked pleasantly enough.

"Ed, have you ever heard of the concept of personal space?" Holden responded.

"Of course. It's the middle distance between intimate and social space. Usually about five feet around a person. When it's invaded by strangers, people feel uncomfortable."

"Exactly. Could you-"

"Go somewhere else?"

"Yeah."

"No, I like it here."

Holden sucked his teeth. On one hand, he knew getting up and taking Ed's old chair would be a sure sign of weakness. On the other hand, he was probably out of grabbing range if he did that. Self-preservation warred with pride for a few seconds, before Holden decided he'd rather appear scared and alive than brave and missing his head.

"Sit down."

The FBI agent had hardly lifted his ass from the pew. He froze, stuck in an awkward squat.

"I'd hate to have you move on my account. So sit down."

It took every shred of willpower Holden possessed not to obey. Instead, he forced himself up and turned to face Ed. The gesture carried less dominance than Holden had hoped. Sitting, Ed was not much shorter than Holden was standing.

"Now I feel put-out," Ed said.

Holden stepped back and claimed Ed's former chair. "I didn't mean to hurt your feelings."

"I invited you to sit with me."

"No, Ed, you invited yourself to sit with _me_."

"And you don't want me."

"I don't want a 6 foot, 9 inch human being that close to me, no."

Ed stretched his arms and rested them on the back of the pew. He was easily able to span the length of the bench. "When I was younger, I always heard women loved tall men. I guess there's an upper limit. Or maybe it was my personality."

Or maybe it was the sexual sadism and murder, Holden thought but wisely didn't say.

"I don't handle rejection well."

Understatement of the year. Again, Holden kept his thoughts to himself.

"Just about the only person to reject me and live was my father. Probably because I was so young, hadn't even killed my grandparents yet. By the time I came into myself, he was no longer in my life. There was no connection to make it worth the effort."

Holden had heard enough about Ed's mother and their mutually miserable relationship to write a series of books. The information on the rest of the family was sparse by comparison. Holden knew that exactly nobody in Ed's family got on well with him, including the cats, but if Ed was going to talk about something besides screwing his mother's corpse, Holden was happy to listen.

"I think there's a connection between us, though, wouldn't you say? We're emotionally invested in each other."

"Sure, Ed. I-" Holden realized the gravity implied by the flippant words the second Ed proved he wasn't _quite_ out of range after all.

There was nowhere for Holden to go. There was a wall to his back, and suddenly an inhumanly big serial killer in front. Holden had a brief idea to throw himself off the chair and see how quickly he could scramble away on all fours, but the space just wasn't there. He probably wouldn't get a chance to upend the chair before Ed's hands found his throat.

Holden swallowed hard. He was a man of average height, maybe a little on the slim side, but Ed made him insignificant.

"Ed-" Holden began, looking resolutely at Ed's shoes, at the floor, at a speck of dirt trapped in the grout, at anything besides the implacable shape blocking his escape.

"Are you going to shout for the guard? Mike's probably on a coffee run. He has a new baby at home, doesn't get much sleep. Even if he hasn't left his post, he wouldn't get here in time for you to have an open casket funeral unless the mortician was an artist."

Holden closed his eyes. "No."

"No, you aren't going to call the guard, or no, you're in denial of the whole situation?"

"No, I'm not going to call the guard." Without resorting to severing ties with his sanity, there was no denying the situation. Ed was a fact, like the sky being blue.

"Good choice. Now-"

"Turn off the tape recorder!" Holden blurted out.

Ed glanced over at the small mechanism sitting in front of the pew. "Why, don't you think this will be insightful?"

"Nobody wants to hear this."

"You don't think Bill might?"

That hit Holden like a punch to the gut. The narrative he conjured was so strong and clear it was almost clairvoyant. He could see Bill sequestered in his office with the door locked. He was chain-smoking, pacing the room, his eyes glancing at the recorder on his desk like it could explode at any second. He was psyching himself up. Eventually, after he'd burned through an entire pack, he sat down and pressed play. Every bit of Ed and Holden's conversation up to this point was recounted.

Then Holden imagined the rest of the tape.

Somewhere not much further along, there would be the sounds of a struggle. A brief and ultimately futile one on his part. At this, Bill would lower his head and run a tired hand across his forehead. If he had any alcohol secreted in a drawer, he would open it.

Ed would most likely strangle him, though Holden could imagine scenarios where he was bludgeoned, his neck was broken, or Ed got creative and started twisting things off. Bill would listen to Holden's death throes, whatever the method, all the way through. He would listen to the gasps or screams or desperate wheezes, to Holden's shoes scraping across the floor, to the end, where Ed, maybe breathing a little heavily, maybe not, would be the only source of sound.

If there were other sounds later, Bill would listen to them. Holden tried not to think of them, but he'd spent too much time with Ed, heard too many stories about what Ed did after. For most killers, the fun stopped when the heart did. Not for Ed.

Panic that Holden dared to believe he'd conquered squeezed his heart. The thought of Bill listening to _that_ was almost as bad as the thought of experiencing it. Because at least Holden would be dead, oblivious, and Bill would have to live with it the rest of his natural life.

"No, turn it off. Please."

"The magic word! Alright, hold on."

Ed stepped back and every instinct Holden possessed demanded that he flee. Never mind where, never mind the fact he was in a locked room, just so long as he _moved_.

There was a subtle click. Holden looked up and found Ed holding the recorder. He had done as asked.

"Thank you." Holden hated himself for the amount of gratitude in his voice.

"Anything for a friend."

A grin that could be mistaken for kind and earnest graced Ed's face. It was only his eyes that gave him away. As the old saying went, eyes were the window to the soul. Ed's windows opened on a void as dark and endless as space. Holden fully expected those eyes to be the last thing he saw in his life.

Ed placed the tape recorder in Holden's lap. Holden looked down at the machine, staring at it like it was some kind of alien artifact. Why had Ed given it to him? Had it all been a game of power and intimidation, a game Holden mistook for reality, as he'd once mistaken Ed's hug for a murder attempt? Was he now free to go?

The hand suddenly at his throat quashed that hopeful notion. There was no playfulness in the grip. Holden bleated something unintelligible and began to fight back. He even managed to get in a solid punch that knocked Ed's glasses askew before Ed captured his flailing fists and subdued them.

"I think I like you even more than Mary," Ed said. His glasses slipped further down his nose.

Holden kicked out viciously, hoping to catch Ed in the crotch. Ed absorbed a blow to his hip without complaint. Holden tried again and found he couldn't muster anywhere near the original force. What little reserves of oxygen his body had were quickly being depleted. The more he struggled, the quicker the world grayed.

Ed could feel Holden's pulse beating against the web of his thumb. It was the heartbeat of a rabbit in pain. It was a shame he hadn't known Holden planned to visit. If he'd been forewarned, he could have gotten his hands on something sharp. For a creative mind, and one trusted by the guards, it would have been simple. And it would have been humane. If he'd cut Holden ear-to-ear, this would have all been over some time ago.

But Holden had shown up out of the blue, and had hurt Ed's feelings, and now the rabbit pulse was beginning to slow. Holden's eyes glazed and his eyelids drooped. Ed released Holden's hands and they fell limply into his lap.

Ed held on until Holden's pulse turned weak and erratic. When he let go, Holden slumped forward in the chair. Ed pushed his glasses back where they belonged. Now that he could see what he was doing, he settled in, waiting until he ascertained Holden was breathing. Actual breathing, not agonal breathing. If that had been the case, a mercy killing would have been in order.

With an unexpected gentleness given his size and the violence he'd committed, Ed lowered Holden from the chair to the floor. He was careful not to drop the tape recorder, which had somehow remained on Holden's lap the whole time. Ed wished he'd been able to keep the recorder running, but his memory was impeccable. If and when he wanted to relive this, he'd have the resources.

On the floor, Holden began to stir. It was the slow rise to consciousness of someone drugged. Ed stepped around the twitching body and sat down on the pew they'd shared.

Holden's random spasms solidified into purposeful movement. He also began to make noises Ed found just delightful. It no doubt felt to Holden that his throat had been set on fire from the inside, so every babbled syllable came out rough and raw.

"Oh Jesus, oh fuck, what happened?" Holden croaked. The words were like shards of glass caught in his throat. Holden coughed, which only exacerbated the pain, and touched a hand to his neck.

"I gave you the same insight I gave those heads in my backyard. Only you get to remember it."

Ed's voice was like a cattle prod applied to Holden's spine. The agent jerked violently and made every attempt to leap to his feet. His disoriented body managed to get to its knees before swaying. He would have fallen down face-first if Ed hadn't been there to steady him.

"Let me give you a hand." Before Holden could protest, Ed had taken him under the armpits and lifted him up. Holden's legs shook but he was able to bear his own weight.

"Why?" Holden asked. "Why didn't you kill me?"

"Did you want me to? Because I've got nothing better to do tonight," Ed offered.

"No!"

"I thought about it, came close. I suppose the truth is, I don't know."

That was not the answer Holden wanted. It wasn't an answer he thought he could live with.

Ed reached out and patted Holden on the shoulder. "I'll sleep on it. Maybe I'll have an epiphany. I'll let you know next time."

"Next time," Holden repeated dully.

"Exactly. Oh, don't forget this." Ed picked up the recorder and handed it to Holden. "Now, let's see if Mike's back from his coffee break."

Mike, blissfully oblivious to the attempted murder that had occurred under his charge, trotted down the hall with a large Styrofoam cup in his hand. "You guys done? Got everything you came for, Agent Ford?"

"Yes," Holden rasped.

The guard winced. "Sounds like you're coming down with something. Hope it's not strep." He opened the door, allowing Holden to exit.

Ed watched Holden retreat at his barely controlled pace. If he'd had the strength in his legs, he probably would have sprinted. Once the agent was out of sight, Ed turned back to his recording equipment. "I've got a book to finish."

"Is it a good one?"

"It really reminds me of home."

* * *

The End!

The title is blatantly stolen from a song by Smokey Robinson. The song got stuck in my head for some reason for damn near the duration of writing this fic.

All those tidbits, from helter-skelter to Kemper reading _Star Wars_, are true.

Agonal breathing is disorganized gasping seen with cardiac arrest or severe brain injury. It is not "true" breathing and is often shortly proceeded by death.


End file.
